Year: 2013

Enrichment and Training for Shelter Dogs in a Shelter Dog Training Class

It’s 6:15 on a Wednesday night and there are 8 dogs and 10 people in the auditorium. There’s Tiger and Blackie who are learning sit, stay and look cues with rewards. Duke is shy and just sitting in his volunteer’s lap while being petted and loved. Brady is receiving more advanced training and going through his repertoire of tricks that include touch, spin and paw. Candy is barking and lunging at other dogs, so a barrier is set up to manage the distraction and to help her concentrate while learning. Gracie is going over jumps and building up her confidence to go through a tunnel. Lou is learning that going in a crate will get him a treat, while Lady, who is an older girl, is just surveying all of the activity as she gets some time out of her kennel. Both volunteers and employees participate in bringing these resident shelter dogs for training and much needed enrichment each week. This is a typical Wednesday night in the Shelter Dog Training Class at the Animal Rescue League of Boston.
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What Adopted Dogs Wish People Knew: Tips for a Family with Children

Many of our shelter dogs are adopted into homes with young children or expecting parents. But often times, adopting families are unaware of how the presence of children can affect how a dog adapts to his or her new environment. Of course, the problems that can arise from this situation are entirely avoidable. Here are a few home management techniques that shelter staff can share with parents for improving safety around dogs and prevent common canine-human miscommunications:
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Get to Know Each Dog in Front of You!

Our friends at the Animal Farm Foundation put together this infographic , “All dogs are individuals – why looks don’t equal behavior.” The Center for Shelter Dogs’ Match-Up II Shelter Dog Rehoming Program reflects this philosophy. We can’t predict a dog’s behavior by looks or breed, not only because we are so often wrong about the breeds in a mixed breed dog, but also because experience and environment play a huge role in determining behavior.

We hope you enjoy this infographic. I sure did! Viewing each dog as an individual helps you identify and understand each dog’s individual needs, enabling you to provide customized care while they are in the shelter and better placements for long-term rehoming. As we like to say at the Center, Because every dog is different!
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Volunteers and Match-Up II

Pat wakes up every Tuesday and Friday morning and takes a bus, then another bus, a subway ride, and then walks ½ mile to the Animal Rescue League of Boston. Once there, Pat helps perform Match-Up II Behavior Evaluations on 3-10 dogs depending on the day. Pat is not an employee; she is a volunteer. Having your volunteers help with the Match-Up II Behavior Evaluation can have a huge positive effect on your shelter or rescue. Many shelters do not have the resources, enough employees, or a behavior department to perform behavior evaluations in a timely manner or at all. Utilizing volunteers can help offset such limitations, and can ultimately result in higher adoption rates for dogs. They can provide support throughout the evaluation process in many ways. For example, they can be trained to actually perform and record evaluations, to video tape them, or to run dogs back and forth from kennels to the evaluation room with supplies at the ready, which makes evaluations go faster.
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Wondering about food aggression?

Food aggression in dogs has always been an enigma to me.  In my private practice, I hardly ever saw dogs who were brought to me for food aggression as their primary problem.  In fact, many dogs were brought in by their owners for other problems, and I only later found out that these dogs were aggressive over food when I took detailed behavior histories.   When I first started working with shelters, I then learned that dogs who were food aggressive were regularly being put to sleep.  I knew that food aggression could be associated with other types of aggression, but I also knew that quite often it wasn’t.
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Every Interaction Counts

For most dogs, being relinquished to an animal shelter is a drastic change and a stressful experience. Even though the shelter may make every effort possible to make the dog’s temporary home feel welcoming, it is still a place where dogs will be confined, separated from their previous families and routines, and live in close proximity to unfamiliar dogs. These environmental changes and abundance of sensory stimuli are very stressful for most dogs.
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder – but a picture is worth a thousand words!

Who among us hasn’t had the experience of seeing a photograph of a pet and sighed with pleasure, amazed at the adorable sweetness of that animal? Even folks not in animal welfare are bombarded daily with cute pictures of pets, through email, Facebook, and Twitter. For those of us in animal welfare, make that hourly! Yet, just what makes us sigh and want to reach through the virtual airwaves and snuggle with that pet? Some photos are universally acclaimed to be chock full of that “sweet” factor, while others are more to an individual taste. Certainly the animal pictured is part of it – but how much is the animal and how much the photo? And how important are photos to the adoption process?
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CSD Programs Help Save Lives in the ASPCA® Rachel Ray™ $100K Challenge

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The Animal Rescue League of Boston is one of just 50 shelters across the country participating in the ASPCA® Rachel Ray™ $100K Challenge. Through this program the League and other participating shelters help find forever homes for puppies, dogs, kittens and cats, and have the opportunity to earn critical grant money to fund future life-saving efforts. The League’s goal of saving 1,200 lives in 12 weeks is aided by the Center for Shelter Dogs’ research-based initiatives in canine behavior evaluation and enrichment.
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Dog Parks and the Adopted Dog

Many adopters want to be able to enjoy dog parks with their new companion. Dog parks can be a great opportunity for dogs to play off leash (especially in a city environment) and to enjoy some social time with their own species. Dog parks can also help high energy dogs to burn off some energy so they can be more relaxed in the home.
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Office Fostering: Tips & Tricks

Office fostering is a great way to learn more about the dogs in your shelter. Not all of our dogs come from the quintessential “home” environment, therefore it is difficult to tell potential adopters how they’ll do in a home when we’ve only seen them in the kennels. In one day (sometimes only an hour or so), you can learn a lot about your shelter dogs with an office foster program.
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